Welcome to Quill Quotes Book Club’s final discussion of The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory! We hope you enjoyed the book. Note, this discussion covers the full book and will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t finished reading yet you may want to go back to the first discussion.
Brooke’s Thoughts
Unfortunately, this is probably my least favorite book club read. My main complaints are that there was too much going on with too many different story lines. I did not like the writing style. The chapters and breaks felt random so I had a hard time following who was talking or being talked about. I also didn’t connect or become invested in any of the characters so I didn’t really care what happened to them. My overall rating is 2.5 stars.
Favorite Quote
“For us there is no end, no goodbye.”
– Anna Ellory, The Rabbit Girls
Kevin’s Thoughts
I really didn’t care for this book and rated it only 2 stars. The writing style was not for me at all with the random mix of first and third-person being very confusing. I’m also still pretty confused by The Rabbit Girls title since Freida was never experimented on and the other women seem far removed from Miriam’s story. It was also disappointing not to find out whether Henryk knew Miriam was his and Freida’s daughter. I assume he didn’t know since if he did I’d expect he’d have accepted that Freida was dead. There was a brief moment I thought there might be a cool twist with Eva just being a braver alternate personality of Miriam’s but instead the ending was fairly bland and predictable. With Henryk being a teacher and Miriam being his and Freida’s daughter, I find it really hard to believe that she never learned French or any other languages to translate the letters herself.
Favorite Quote
“Time fills in the blanks as we know them to be, rather than as they were.”
– Anna Ellory, The Rabbit Girls
Vote
Sorry, this vote is now closed. The average rating was 3/5 stars.
The Rabbit Girls Final Discussion Prompts/Questions
Feel free to comment whatever thoughts and questions you have! But if you aren’t sure where to start, consider some of the prompts/questions below:
- Did you guess Miriam was Frieda’s daughter?
- Do you think Henryk got his closure? Should Miriam have told him the truth or was she right to pretend to be Freida?
- How do you feel about the title and cover of the book?
- Share a favorite quote!
Commenting
We can’t wait to hear from you in the comments! Be aware, some comments may be held for our review to reduce spam and won’t appear on the site right away, but we’ll do our best to review quickly. If you have any trouble commenting, please let us know on social media or via email to hello@quillquotes.com so we can try to help.
If you’d like to keep track of the discussion or replies to your comment via email, be sure to change the dropdown above the Post Comment button. You can also use the checkbox to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us if you haven’t already! You should receive an email to confirm, so please check your junk/spam folder and add hello@quillquotes.com to your safe-sender list if you don’t receive anything.
We hope you enjoy this discussion and join us again next month! Vote in our March Book Selection now!
I enjoyed it. I was interested in who were the Rabbit Girls. It is hard to believe they were used for experimental purposes. Although some of you felt it was almost two stories, I looked at as you could not separated the two stories. Freida’s story was told through the letters tucked away in the dress.
Miriam was trying so hard to be a good daughter even thou her parents abandoned her to her husband’s cruel treatment of her. One could could compare her husbands treatment of her to those in the concentration camps. Miriam and Frieda and Emilie all had to be strong women. Emilie for raising another women’s child, Miriam for finally being able to leave her abusive husband, and Frieda helping others in concentration camp.
Henryk was also telling his story of lost love and love for his wife and daughter. He knew that Miriam was his daughter. But not that she was Frieda’s child. When the last letter was read and he found out he could die peacefully. You had three main characters whose stories must be told together in order to see the strength of the characters. And understand their story
I’m glad you enjoyed the story! I did like some of the themes like strong women coming together to help each other. I think this could have been a very powerful book but it just didn’t quite connect for me.
I found the cheating in the beginning off-putting and I don’t really like stories about abuse so I just think this book wasn’t really for me.
For WW2 books, I enjoyed The Book Theif and The Librarian of Auschwitz much more.
I do see what the author was going for in linking the stories. But, for me, the link between an abusive relationship and the holocaust didn’t work well. Society’s failure to help Miriam was alluded to in a few ways, like her doorman continuing to let her husband in and the police struggling to believe her unless she fought back. Still, Miriam seemed to have several options open to her whereas those suffering the holocaust had only to wait for death or the war to end.
In my interpretation of the ending, Henryk never finds out that Miriam is his and Freida’s daughter. I think reading him the last letter and confirming with him would have been better but she read the letter with Eva in the coffee shop and then pretended to be Freida when she lasts visits her father. So, unless he knew from Emilie, I don’t think he ever learned Freida was Miriam’s mother. Maybe Emilie was afraid Henryk wouldn’t stay with her if he knew she wasn’t Miriam’s mother, but it seems like he suffered much of his life wondering what happened to Freida. So it seems very cruel that she wouldn’t share that fact and the letters with him sooner.
If I had to venture a guess the origin story behind the novel The Rabbit Girls I’d say that originally there were two stories that demonstrated how powerful humans, especially women, can be. The first is a horror tale about the difficulty of being in a relationship with a physically and mentally abusive husband and the post-traumatic stresses that come from trying to leave that life behind all the while never knowing when the monster husband would re-emerge. In this story the female protagonist has to fight a society that does not believe her husband is a monster as well as her own insecurities and mental health issues. At the end though she is triumphant and can go on to experience a life without her terrible husband. The second is a historical fiction story about a group of women in WWII Germany and their horrendous experiences in an extermination camp. The female protagonists in this book are all different ages and ethnicities and they must all face what they have lost and what they’re willing to lose to survive. At the end of this story most of the characters do not survive but the reader is left with the realization of how terrible human beings can potentially treat each other while juxtaposing just how wonderful human beings can be towards one another in the most desperate of times. The Rabbit Girls was created when someone tried to smash these two stories together and then tried to make it nice and neat by “cutting off the crust. “ In the separate stories I can understand the themes of “hope,” “the perversion and endurance of the human spirit” and even “the salvation that is love.” But in The Rabbit Girls, while the themes are present, they’re muddled by the two stories trying to be forced into one cohesive novel. It’s a shame. I think reading either story would of been a good experience. But together the novel just felt lacking.
Very well put, I completely agree! I can definitely see what the author was going for but separating the stories would have probably worked better. I think this book should have been much longer to make each story feel complete.
I liked this book more than Brooke and Kevin. It kept me guessing if Miriam was really crazy like her husband was making her feel. I was also thinking Miriam had a split personality and Eva was her other personality translating the letters. I do wish Miriam would have looked for Frieda’s family since she was her daughter. The letters were very sad and it is hard to believe much of that really happened. Its bone chilling how people can treat other people.
My favorite quote was ‘Words hold a lot more power than we realize.’
‘Evan the darkest words will find the light.’
‘I suppose what is lost can always be found.’
These quotes were from Miriam when she was reading the letters.
I’m glad you enjoyed the book more than we did. The split personality would have been an interesting concept.
I was a little disappointed with the ending. I think she should have told Henryk or like you said look for Frieda’s family.
I feel like there wasn’t enough time for all the characters. I didn’t really get to know any of them. They all felt like side characters to me.
That is a really good quote though!